


No such thing as magic tears

by Slant



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 17:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1356103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While magic tears are in the original fairy tale, I felt they were unnecessary to the movie.  </p>
<p>(I'm skipping the last five minutes if I rewatch it)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No such thing as magic tears

"What are you crying for honey?"

I still do this, sometimes. Go out in the city and get my hands dirty. Kiss some babies. Exercise some executive power. Mostly it's unnecessary; I inherited a Kingdom with copacetic quality-of-life indicators and an active civil society. Mom and Dad not only ran a kickass state, they built one that would stay kickass even if ran by greedy incompetents. Which I try not be or appoint.  
What they didn't quite have my...insight into was domestic violence and child abuse.

Even Max had trouble keeping the crime rate down when I added those offenses, and the budget to detect them.

She's trying to be brave and hold it in. It's adorable but eventually alienating.  
"Oh honey, there's nothing wrong with having a good cry now and then."  
It doesn't make things better: there is no such thing as magic tears, but it can make you feel better which is sometimes all that can be done.  
"You'll feel better for it afterwards. And then you can try to deal with whatever it is that's wrong. Maybe find someone and ask for help."

I never ask Max to help. He just did. There was always more going on behind his eyes than any three humans.

"Have you got a name sweetie?"

I bundled his body in the dull strands that had been my hair; I had extensive experience in moving his limp body around the tower room, and it must have helped, but all I can remember is bursting into tears again whenever he wedged against something the way he did that first day.

I lowered him out the window, numb and shaking. My hair wouldn't do what I wanted. It wasn't mine and it wasn't magic and I think at the time that loss was what I felt the most. Sometimes the heart has different priorities than you'd think.

I tired off at the top (rethreaded figure of eight around the bed; I did some extra half hitches because the fibers were unbundling) and followed him down (dulfersitz rappel). With the magic gone it felt like I hasn't conditioned in weeks. Like it hadn't been conditioned in weeks. Did you know that you still worry about your rope fraying even when you're seriously considering letting go? My hair had always done what I wanted and now it was this disobedient bundle of stands that kept betraying me.

I've got a name, and a slightly snotty narrative about a broken plate. I don't have any memories of being young enough that basic object manipulation was a challenge, but I think maybe it is like my hair was that day.  
"Whose plate was it sweetie? 

Over time, all the what-ifs and the if-only-I-was-betters and the thousand other tricks of "it's all my fault" (Really brain? I didn't see me welding a knife or making decisions for other people) fade away, and you're left with what happened and what you are going to do about it.

"Do you think that they'll be sadder that your missing or that the plate's broken? We can fix one of these if you like, or we can get a new plate and go home with that." Nothing like an independent generous and interested party make a perpetrator panic.

What I did was this: I lived. The world was still bright and amazing and occasionally terrifying, just like Flynn had shown me. My frying pan was swift and keen; Max introduced me to my parents, but we kept it low key until the next celebration of lights.

What I did was this: I mourned them both. Yes, I know what Gothel was; I know what she did, on that day and every day if my childhood. She was the only mother I had ever known (when I told the story, Mom said that I better call her by name; six years later I called her 'Mom' for the first time; we both cried.)

Emotions are complicated. Who knew?

**Author's Note:**

> Some lines that got cut because they didn't fit anywhere: 
> 
> I made meaning out of public service.
> 
> I made my stand against the void. I do not leave the world a better place than I found it. The world is the same unmeaning ball of dull matter and unthinking forces it has always been.
> 
> I made friends, and love.
> 
> Father died last year. A little piece of order and meaning, slipping back into entropy.
> 
> My frying pan was still the sort of legendary cast-iron skillet that warrior-chefs go on quests for to save gastronomic Kingdoms.


End file.
